The Grisly Logic of Violence

One minute, the white Mercedes-Benz sat parked in the working-class neighborhood of Ain Rummaneh in Christian East Beirut. The next, 330 lbs. of explosives hidden inside the vehicle went off in a mighty roar, totally demolishing the car and setting seven nearby apartment buildings ablaze. Thirty-two died and 140 were injured in the blast.

Little more than a day later, on a busy street in the Barbir area of Muslim- dominated West Beirut, a gray Volkswagen containing 165 lbs. of explosives blew up in another deafening blast. The force devastated a shopping center of 20 boutiques, set fire to dozens of cars and shattered the windows of Barbir Hospital. Though ambulances raced screaming to the scene, at least 25 people were killed and 170 wounded.

The attacks, the worst this year in the crumbling Lebanese capital, accounted for almost half the country's 123 car- bomb-related deaths since January. They underlined yet again the bloody logic of Beirut's seemingly senseless cycle of sectarian vendettas. No groups claimed responsibility for the bombings, but Christian leaders promptly blamed the East Beirut atrocity on Muslims, charging that they were acting for the regime of Syrian President Hafez Assad. Across town in his West Beirut headquarters, Nabih Berri, the chief of the predominantly Shi'ite Amal militia, ascribed the Barbir bombing to Christian militiamen bent on revenge. More radical Shi'ites claimed that the Christian perpetrators were acting as "lackeys of Israel."

One day later, Berri, who is also Lebanon's Minister of Justice, organized his own show of "justice," though it bore no direct relation to either of last week's explosions. Amal militiamen bound and blindfolded Mohieddin Saleh, 22, a Sunni Muslim they charged with trying to set off a car bomb three months earlier, then took him to a playground near the Rawdat Shahidain Cemetery. As a crowd of 1,000 looked on, Amal executioners stepped up to the prostrate Saleh and pumped seven machine-gun rounds into his face and body. The grisly execution tragically bore out the lament of Lebanese Army Brigadier General Mohammed Haj as bodies were being pulled from the rubble in Barbir. "In this deadly game," said Haj, "we are all victims and losers."